


One journey for you (but it's worth it)

by tuesdaysgone



Category: Comics RPF, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:07:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesdaysgone/pseuds/tuesdaysgone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t want to stay in England,” Frank wheezes.</p>
<p>“The doctor said bed rest, Frank. Bed rest, or you have to go on oxygen again. And you’re not allowed to fly with a fucking collapsed lung.” Ray sounds annoyed, but that’s generally how he deals with being worried about Frank.</p>
<p>“It’s reinflated,” Frank points out.</p>
<p>“And technically, it’s Scotland,” Mikey adds without looking up from his phone. “Alicia says to behave or she’ll feed Sweet Pea to Pig.”</p>
<p>“Yeah right.” Frank looks to the one person who hasn’t said anything yet. “Gerard -”</p>
<p>“Grant’s excited to have you stay with him, Frank.” He’s giving Frank the big earnest eyes he always makes whenever he utters any sentence with Grant Morrison’s name in it.</p>
<p>“Grant said, and I quote, ‘He’s welcome to stay, but don’t blame me if he’s carried off by faeries,’” Frank points out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One journey for you (but it's worth it)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annemaris (annemari)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annemari/gifts).



> No_Tags 2012 Prompt #6: Frank/Grant Morrison - fairies and magic

“I don’t want to stay in England,” Frank wheezes.

“The doctor said bed rest, Frank. Bed rest, or you have to go on oxygen again. And you’re not allowed to fly with a fucking collapsed lung.” Ray sounds annoyed, but that’s generally how he deals with being worried about Frank.

“It’s reinflated,” Frank points out.

“And technically, it’s Scotland,” Mikey adds without looking up from his phone. “Alicia says to behave or she’ll feed Sweet Pea to Pig.”

“Yeah right.” Frank looks to the one person who hasn’t said anything yet. “Gerard -”

“Grant’s excited to have you stay with him, Frank.” He’s giving Frank the big earnest eyes he always makes whenever he utters any sentence with Grant Morrison’s name in it.

“Grant said, and I quote, ‘He’s welcome to stay, but don’t blame me if he’s carried off by faeries,’” Frank points out. “Doesn’t sound like he’s dying to play nursemaid.”

Gerard shrugs. “It’s Grant.” He sounds like he thinks that’s all the explanation anyone could want or need. To Gerard, it probably is. “Hey, Lindsey’s meeting the tour for the interviews in Paris. If the doctor hasn’t given you the okay by then, I’ll send her up to visit, okay?”

Frank smiles despite himself. Gerard would do it, too, even though he hasn’t seen Lindsey for a month. He looks between the three of them. They’re good fucking friends. And it is really cool of Grant to let him come stay. And it’ll be fine. Frank just hates missing shows. “Fucking lungs,” he mutters.

“You’re lucky they haven’t crawled out of your body in protest, asshole,” Gerard tells him, but he throws an arm around him and squeezes after he says it. Frank leans into him and sighs. Fine, he’ll go fucking recuperate in fucking Scotland.

He’s probably going to be eaten by a sheep. Or kidnapped by faeries. It would just figure.

*

Mehdi gets him a car to the train station. It’s about a three-hour trip from Manchester to Glasgow, but at least it’s not flying, Frank rationalizes. About an hour into the trip, he changes his mind. He can’t get comfortable at all, and he’s paranoid about falling asleep and missing the station somehow. He readjusts his earphones and picks a new playlist.

Grant’s waiting with a car and a cup of coffee at the train station in Glasgow. He gives Frank a one-armed hug and hands over the paper cup with an apologetic smile. “It’s still a rather long drive from here, I’m afraid. Are you feeling well?”

“I’m fine,” Frank tells him. “I hope you haven’t gone out of your way too much, Grant.”

Grant waves a hand. “I wasn’t sleeping anyway, so I drove out and stayed the night and visited my friend Vince this morning at his studio.”

Of course he did. “But still -”

Grant grins. “Enough, Frank. I’m really making you go out of yours. Holy Loch is off the beaten track, I know, but I like it that way, and as I’m given to understand you need a nursemaid, so....”

Frank groans. “Gerard told you.... I’m just supposed to rest, that’s all.”

“It was implied. Strongly. Also that you’re uncooperative. That part wasn’t implied.”

Frank resists the urge to bang his head against the window. “I’m a grown man,” he mutters.

Grant eyes him from the driver’s seat and smirks. “Clearly.”

“Just because they’re all married and I’m not doesn’t make me the... the fucking... I don’t know, man.” He folds his arms over his chest and sinks back into the seat.

It doesn’t strike him until much later that Grant’s comment could have been taken as a come-on. But by then they’ve changed the subject to the tour and he’s deep into an explanation of how he’d put together the latest set list and it’s too late to comment, or even blush, so Frank just lets it go.

Conversation dies off well before they reach the Holy Loch ferry (which is actually pretty fucking cool) and Frank steals looks at Grant every once in a while. He does, now that Frank has an opportunity to study him, look pretty tired, with lines around his mouth and eyes that Frank doesn’t remember from the summer and the video shoots. Then Grant pulls up in front of what Frank assumes is his house and he’s distracted from everything else.

“Wow, Grant, this is some fucking house.” It looks like a castle, complete with stone arches and stained glass and slightly crumbling outbuildings.

“Be it ever so humble,” Grant says, walking around to get Frank’s bags out of the back and hanging on to them despite his protests. “Door to door service,” he says, tugging them out of Frank’s grasp. “Let’s go inside and I’ll show you around.”

It gets even more fantastical inside, because Grant’s taste in furniture and decor is a mix between the antique and the slightly insane. He must see the longing glance Frank casts at the bed in the guest room, piled high with comforters and pillows, because he says, “The full tour can wait till you’ve rested,” and Frank’s happy to nod along.

*

Grant’s tap on the door wakes him. It’s already dark outside, and Frank realizes he’s slept the day away. “I’ve made dinner,” Grant calls through the door. “It’ll keep if you’d rather not get up, though.”

Frank gets up. It’s just a vegetable barley soup and toasted cheese - “Gourmet I am not, when I’m cooking for myself,” Grant tells him - but Frank’s starving.

“I had the strangest dream,” Frank tells him over tea when they’ve retired to the sitting room. “I was chasing children down the upstairs hall of your house. They were giggling like crazy, but they were invisible or something, I could only see their footprints. It was one of those super realistic dreams, too. So weird.”

Grant doesn’t answer right away, just sips at his tea. “How strange,” he says finally. “Well, there are no children here, invisible or otherwise.”

They sit in silence for a while, until Frank asks idly, “Is that today’s paper?”

“Mm? Ah, yes, the Herald.” Frank starts to get up and Grant holds up a hand. “People without collapsed lungs do the fetching and carrying around here." He gets up himself and hands it over.

"It's reinflated," Frank tells him with a grimace.

“I did have a warning you'd not cooperate, remember? Sit and relax."

It’s a quiet evening, and Frank falls asleep in the chair. Grant wakes him up after an indeterminate amount of time and gently shoos him upstairs. Half-asleep still, Frank’s positive he hears more laughter as he rounds the corner of the upstairs hall, but he passes out as soon as he hits the surface of his bed.

Despite Grant's totally unexpected willingness to host recuperating band members, he’s also really busy working, so over the next couple days Frank does spend a lot of time by himself. He texts the guys a lot. He starts out complaining about missing tour dates and asking them what they’re doing (the answer is always either “another fucking interview” or “video games,” depending on who he’s asking). It makes sense for him to sit this one out til the tour comes back through the UK - he’s missing fewer dates this way, but he’s edgy about missing even one, especially after he starts feeling better.

One afternoon Frank’s grumpy and bored and the house is making the weird creaking/shifting noises that Frank still swears sound like kids running around on the upper floors and Grant swears are either the wind (understandable) or mice in the walls (worse, and Frank starts eyeing Grant’s cats suspiciously whenever they walk into a room) and Grant comes downstairs and offers him a sneak peek of the thumbnails for the script he’s working on.

Like Frank’s going to say no to that. He sends Gerard and Mikey a couple of taunting texts even though they still haven’t answered the ones he sent them an hour ago, which means they are either at soundcheck or are really fucking sick of seeing his name pop up on their phone screens.

It’s a toss-up.

Grant sits him down in his desk chair and opens a bunch of files on the desktop, and at first Frank’s so distracted by Batman (and just maybe, the realization that he’s sitting at Grant fucking Morrison’s desk, reading his comic scripts) to notice that... he’s sitting at Grant’s desk, with Grant leaning over his back to navigate the mouse and talking in his ear.

Grant’s hot. Frank isn’t blind, or dead.

After that, it’s a really short step to remembering how Grant had looked him over in the car the other day, and an even shorter step to the kind of breathless that’s really actually not recommended for people who are recovering from collapsed lungs.

And he hears the noise again. He whips around, so fast that Grant has to take a step back, and so Grant’s already looking at him in surprise when Frank says, “Please tell me you heard that.”

“Sorry Frank, I don’t think so.” It’s disappointing, and Frank deflates a bit. Neither of them moves for a moment. Grant is studying him now with what he’d assumed was simply a sort of friendly, slightly exhausted concern. This close to Grant, Frank can see the way he’s holding himself back from doing more. He considers commenting, but he’s not sure what he would say. Sorry I’m hallucinating, want to pretend I’m not too much of an invalid to jump your bones? is... sort of a mouthful.

Maybe he was just imagining things after all. “Don’t suppose you’ve bought a haunted house, Grant?” he jokes nervously. It’s barely a joke, not after the Paramour, and he’s pretty sure that Grant knows that, knows all about that - Gerard, Frank supposes, would have told him.

“You’re quite safe from ghosties, and the only beasties here are the cats - and me,” Grant jokes back, smoothing a strand of hair out of Frank’s face in an automatic gesture. Less friendly than intimate, and Frank is sure now he’s not wrong, but he still can’t think of any way to tell Grant he doesn’t mind at all.

“Maybe I should just go -” He waves a hand in the direction of his room.

“Have a lie-down? Yes, maybe you should. Shall I wake you for dinner?” Grant steps back, and Frank pushes himself out of the chair.

“Don’t bother, I’ll set an alarm.” He shoots a small, furtive smile at Grant, who smiles back and watches him go, one hand still set on the back of the desk chair.

*

He dreams of arms around him, strong and warm. He dreams of a cocoon of blankets, of nosing up under a slightly stubbly jaw and leaving a kiss there. He stretches contentedly - and someone gasps in his ear, and the covers are tugged away, and Frank is awake.

Grant is in bed with him. Even before he can start feeling weird about that, he sees the shocked expression on Grant’s face (and his bare chest, and the way the covers have pooled around his waist) and realizes Grant is as surprised as he is.

Then he realizes he’s not in his bedroom.

Then he realizes he’s not in Grant’s bedroom either.

Not that he’s been in Grant’s bedroom. But he figures it’s a pretty good guess, because he’s pretty sure Grant’s not sleeping underground. And he’s pretty damn sure that’s where they are.

Frank takes a deep breath. It hurts. “Grant?” he says. “What the hell is going on? Also... are you wearing any clothes under there?”

“First place your mind went, hm?” Grant teases gently. He pushes the covers back to reveal that he is, in fact, wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and gets out of bed. “I think the real question should be ‘Grant, where are we?’”

“I’m a rock star, I’m used to waking up and not knowing where I am,” Frank tells him. It’s better than admitting to being terrified. “Grant,” he adds, “Do you know where we are? And how we fucking got here?”

Grant’s looking around, same as Frank, and frowning. “Unfortunately, I have an idea.”

*

“Kidnapped by faeries,” Frank groans into the bed pillow. He feels a weight settle on the edge of the bed, and a hand descends between his shoulder blades and rubs up and down his back a few times.

“Trust me when I say I had no idea it would actually happen,” Grant tells him apologetically.

“You said it,” Frank says accusingly, sitting up and brushing his hair out of his eyes and glaring. “On the phone, to Gerard and me.”

“A joke. I’d been having a bad week, and I’d just had dinner with a friend who suggested the fae folk were having a bit of a lark with me. Believe me, I am as shocked as you to be -”

“In faery land?” Just as Frank says it, he hears the laughter again, louder this time and coming from more than one direction. “If you didn’t hear it this time....” Frank says, pointing an accusing finger at Grant.

“I did,” Grant confirms. “I believe they were hiding from me, before. Little point in that now, hm?”

“I still haven’t decided that I’m not dreaming,” Frank tells him.

“I’d offer to pinch you, but I do believe you might clock me at the moment.” Grant stands and goes to rummage in a nearby wardrobe for clothing, pulling out a dressing robe with a pleased noise and shrugging it over his shoulders. He bends to pluck something out of the bottom - two pairs of slippers. He hands one to Frank, who slips them on his bare feet and frowns even more deeply when he realizes they fit perfectly.

“Kidnapped. By. Faeries. I don’t believe in faeries, Grant. Not one bit.”

“Well, perhaps you’re still dreaming after all. But might I suggest a bit of a walk anyway?”

*

This is how Frank finds himself shuffling through the stone corridors of what has every indication of actually being an underground magic castle, with Grant fucking Morrison at his side.

They’ve been walking for a long time, mostly in silence. Frank’s been staring at Grant’s shoulders, trying to psych himself up to let out some of the questions roiling around in his mind. He’s already pinched himself. It hurt. It also didn’t make him wake back up in Grant’s guest room.

He’s starting to maybe believe, just a tiny bit, that this is actually something that is happening to him. Grant has very kindly not brought this up.

“So, faeries,” he says finally.

“I’d always felt a bit of the fae folk’s presence around and about the house, but they don’t seem to fret over me so I’ve never fretted over them.” He says it so matter-of-factly Frank has no choice but to believe him. It’s not really such a stretch, to imagine Grant contentedly sharing living space with magical creatures. If Frank believed in magical creatures. Or magic. Which, knowing Grant, is almost impossible not to do. As if he senses the train of Frank’s thoughts, Grant continues, “I’m very much afraid that today is Imbolc. That probably doesn’t mean anything to you -” Frank shakes his head - “But I’d lit a fire in my room last night.”

Frank tries very hard not to be interested in the fact that Grant has a fireplace in his bedroom, because it’s really, really not relevant. “A fire,” he repeats.

“Yes. And I’d been thinking about you. Your recovery. The fact that you’d be leaving soon.” Frank isn’t sure what this all has to do with some pagan holiday, and he’s trying even harder not to be interested in the fact that Grant was thinking about him.

“So you’re saying that was enough to -” Frank makes a swooshing gesture with his hands.

“The fae folk - well. I don’t know what changed their tune after leaving me alone all this time, but they don’t typically need much of an excuse to have their fun.”

“Fun?” Frank repeats.

“Messing about with mortals is basically reality TV for the fae.” Grant gestures around them. “Can’t you feel them watching?”

As if to prove him right, there’s another instance of the fucking unearthly giggling. Frank whips around, and Grant reaches out and lays a hand over Frank’s mouth. “Don’t agitate them.”

Frank glares, then very deliberately licks Grant’s palm. But what works on Ray and Gerard has no discernible effect on Grant. He just raises an eyebrow. “Are you quite sure you want to go down that road, Frank?”

Frank looks back and forth down the endless hallway they’ve been following and raises an eyebrow back. “As opposed to?” He’s pretty sure he’s doing a good job not freaking out, here. Especially since he’s starting to feel short of breath. He bites his lip and turns back to the way they were heading, but after a while he has to stop and rub his chest.

Grant had been letting him lead, but now his hand curves over Frank’s shoulder and he says, “Are you all right?”

“Tired,” Frank admits. It’s more than he might have said in the past, but his guys have been trying to train him out of the habit of going until his body fails him. Clearly he’s not too fucking trainable, but “stuck in a magical kingdom” seems like a pretty good starting point to mend his ways. “Fuck. Maybe we should have just stayed where we were.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?” Frank repeats. He grabs hold of Grant’s arm, stopping him in the middle of the corridor and pointing a finger right at his face. “You knowing what you’re doing was the only thing keeping me from fucking freaking out. I’m scared, and tired, and really fucking bored, and you just -” With a sound of disgust, Frank turns on his heel and starts walking back the way they’d come.

“Frank, please -” Grant’s voice cuts off curiously quickly, and Frank whips back around. Not an arm’s length away, where once there was a long, straight corridor - and Grant - there’s now a solid wall.

“What the fuck,” Frank whispers, touching it with his fingertips. Solid. He hammers on it with his fist. “Grant! Come on, this isn’t fucking funny! Grant!”

The laughter this time is entirely malicious.

Frank hammers on the wall until his fists hurt just as much as his chest, then turns, puts his back to it, and sinks down to sit on the hard stone floor. He’s not sure how long he sits, but he can’t think of anything else to do.

The thing is, Grant’s easily the smartest person he knows, aside from Gerard. And he’s been there for them - well, for Gerard, and by extension the rest of them - in some of their worst moments. Grant’s confidence is contagious.

Frank hadn’t realized how much it had meant to him personally until just now. And just now is probably the worst moment Frank can think of to feel the loss of Grant’s presence.

He slumps to the floor and props his feet on the magical wall. “So,” he says conversationally, “Judging by the laughter, you think this is fucking hysterical. What do you think is gonna happen here? I’m the most boring fucking reality show you’ve ever seen, I promise you.”

No answer from the faeries, or whatever fucking invisible being is hanging out, but as if in response he hears a stomach-turning papery scuttling sound from somewhere down the hall. Frank rolls over and peers down the dark corridor, but the light - real fucking medieval looking torches in sconces - is too uneven for him to make anything out.

“That’s just dirty,” he says. “Are you trying to scare me?”

One of the torches a little ways down the corridor gutters and goes out.

“Okay. I’m not gonna lie, that’ll do it, but come on, isn’t this all a little Blair Witch?” Frank thumps his feet against the wall again, tapping out the bass line to one of their songs. “Look, let’s make a deal. You give me Grant back, I’ll be suitably fucking impressed by everything you’ve got going on in your Haunted Mansion here, and then you can send us home.”

He makes it all the way to the bridge, then switches to a new song. Then the wall disappears from under his feet.

“Oh!” Frank sits up. The corridor has reappeared, looking exactly like it did before - basically, exactly like every other foot of it had looked for as long as Grant and Frank had walked - except for one obvious difference. It’s empty. “This wasn’t the fucking deal,” Frank grumbles.

So Grant kept going without him. Or maybe the faeries had... magicked him somewhere? Well, Frank can keep going too.

“Grant?” he calls, just in case. “Grant, I’ll let you pinch me now.” Still no answer. “Fine,” he mutters. “I’ll just keep going.”

He keeps going. After a while, the corridor isn’t endless anymore; there’s a corner ahead, and when he rounds that, a set of stairs. He can’t see the top. This isn’t going to be pretty, even though he’s cut back on smoking and even started working out. He tells himself it’s to keep Gerard company, but really he’s pretty sick of his body fucking failing him, too.

“If you’re going to make me walk all over your fucking castle, the least you could do is... magic me better or something,” Frank grumbles.

He starts climbing. After a while he can’t see the top or the bottom of the stairway, and he has to stop for a moment to quietly freak out. He’s not sure how long he goes on after that, except eventually it strikes him that he doesn’t feel winded, and that’s odd. “So you’re not ignoring me after all?” he says. “Great. Now where’s Grant?”

He’s not sure why he’s still talking. He sounds insane. This whole situation is fucking insane. He climbs a few more steps. A torch blows out. He stumbles, and realizes as his eyes adjust that he’s reached the top of the stairs. Also, there’s a door in the wall. It’s the first door he’s seen since they left the bedroom where they’d woken up.

Frank bites his lip and reaches for the handle.

It’s not a bedroom this time, but a dining room of sorts. Frank’s heart skips a beat when he sees the bald figure slumped in a chair at the foot of a long trestle table. “Grant?” he calls.

“Frank!” Grant bolts to his feet. “Oh, thank the gods.” He comes close enough to wrap Frank in a tight hug. “You were gone, and the hallway went crooked, and I took so many left turnings I must have been walking in circles, but I never found a connection. This room appeared just as I was sure I’d have to stop.”

“There was a wall, and it disappeared after a while, but I just had to climb this fucking brutal staircase. And it’s been quiet. I’d even started to miss the fucking freaky laughter,” he calls out pointedly. Frank gestures around them. “Can’t be all bad, waiting here. I haven’t seen this much food since the last time Lindsey did Thanksgiving dinner.”

Grant laughs bitterly. “They’re having another joke at our expense, they are. You mustn’t eat or drink anything in faerie, or you won’t be allowed to leave.”

Frank sighs. “Figures. Just wait til I see the suggestion box for this dump,” he calls out.

It surprises another laugh out of Grant. “Talking to them now, Frank?”

“Yes. I’ve gone fucking nuts, clearly.” Grant’s still got an arm around him. Frank burrows farther into his side. “We can rest here anyway, right? I think I need to. I swear, I’ll ignore the food.”

“Whatever you want, Frank. You’re here now. I’d just about given up.” Grant’s voice sounds a little funny; Frank pulls back far enough to look him in the face.

“You were that worried,” he says quietly.

“As we’ve established, this is all my fault.” The corner of Grant’s mouth lifts in a half-smile.

“When did we establish that? How do you figure?”

“I set it all up for them like a charm. A mortal in need of healing, the fire on the eve of Brigid’s day, the way I feel -” He cuts himself off. “They’d have felt the magic. I know they like to keep an eye on me, and I’m afraid they decided to have a bit of fun at our expense after all.”

“You were doing a spell? For - me?”

“Just a little one. I was worried. You four, you always run yourselves ragged even when you don’t mean to, and you were going to leave me soon.”

Frank’s eyes narrow. He’s clearly hiding something, but - “Maybe I’m just being sensitive, because of fucking faery land and all, but I don’t know if I like the idea of spells, Grant.”

“That’s fair,” Grant says. “I had the best of intentions. I promise you.”

“I... trust you.” And he really does, Frank realizes. If there’s ever been anyone who’s deserved it.... Well, Gerard’s hero-worship is pretty contagious too. He takes a deep breath. Grant’s arm is still around his waist, loosely like he’d forgotten it was there, but it tightens now.

“All right, Frank?”

“I’m tired. And hungry,” he says with an irritated glance around the room. The torches flare, as if to show off the banquet to greater effect. “You would,” he mutters.

Grant casts a glance at their surroundings as well. “We ought to keep moving.” He lets go of Frank’s waist, but Frank grabs his hand before he can move away and gets up onto his tiptoes to kiss Grant’s cheek. Grant makes a surprised noise and freezes.

“I’m really fucking glad I found you,” Frank tells him.

“I - likewise,” Grant says.

They start back out the door hand-in-hand this time, and right away things are different. It’s not just a single hallway anymore, but doorways everywhere. Empty corridors, some with dead ends. “Not cool,” Frank says crankily after the fifth or sixth dead end forces them to backtrack and aims an irritated kick at the wall.

Grant tugs him away before it connects. “Don’t,” he says. “We’ll just go back.”

“I don’t want to go back, I want to go home! Do I have to fucking click my heels or -”

He can’t finish his sentence, because Grant kisses him. Just pulls him close and tilts Frank’s face up with his free hand and presses their lips together. Maybe he means it to stay chaste, but Frank makes a surprised noise and his lips part beneath Grant’s and it all changes.

Grant’s warm and solid, and his hand feels good on Frank’s jaw. Gentle and steady. No one’s touched Frank quite like that in a while. No one’s kissed Frank in a while, but this is making up for it, Grant’s tongue stroking his with utter confidence, hand slipping into his hair to hold him close. More, he wants more. Frank twines his arms around Grant’s neck and pushes him up against the wall.

And through the wall, which disappears like so much air. They stumble for a moment, lips parting, regaining their footing with their bodies still tangled together. Frank peers over Grant’s shoulder. Another corridor has appeared where the wall had been. This one’s lit with hanging brass lamps instead of torches, a colorful carpet laid on the stone floor, tapestries on the walls.

“Well,” Frank says. “That’s different.”

He’s not entirely sure if he means the kissing or the change in their surroundings. Maybe a blanket statement is the safest thing, right now.

“I do believe we’re making some progress,” Grant says after turning around to see what Frank’s looking at. He still has a hand on the back of Frank’s neck.

“Yeah, can we talk about that?” Forget blanket statements.

“Yes,” Grant says and bends down to kiss him again. Frank sinks into it - fuck, he can’t help it, and Grant is really fucking good at it - but pulls back before he gives into the urge to fist his hands in Grant’s robe.

“What was that for?” he asks breathlessly.

“If you were going to tell me to piss off, I figured I had one last chance to change your mind,” Grant says calmly.

“Do not piss off,” Frank tells him. “I am really not sure of a lot of things right now, but I am pretty sure about that.” The expression that blooms on Grant’s face is totally worth it. It’s delighted, and a little dangerous. And really, really fucking hot. And distracting. “All I was gonna say was, can we maybe get out of fucking faery land and then talk about it?”

“Talk?” Grant repeats, pressing his thumb against the corner of Frank’s mouth.

Eventually. After a while. Of things. Frank feels like he deserves it. “I’m sure there will be words,” he amends. “But first -”

“Right,” Grant says. He takes Frank’s hand again and they set off down the corridor. The carpet is soft under their feet. Their footsteps make no sound, and after a while they can hear the faint sound of music. Frank thinks dimly that he should be more scared than ever, but Grant’s holding his hand and mostly he just feels impatient.

They follow the music. It seems as good an idea as any other. The corridor winds this time, and the sound gets steadily louder, so Frank’s sure they’re going the right way... until they turn in to another dead end. He tightens his fingers around Grant’s. “Hell no,” he tells the faeries and keeps going. He’s half-convinced the entire time that his shoulder’s going to run straight into solid stone, but he doesn’t flinch, and the surface shimmers and melts at the last moment, revealing a large stone hall and a large set of wooden doors.

“I think we’ve found the throne room,” Grant murmurs.

“You sure? They could have at least sent a welcoming committee.”

The doors swing open. Frank tightens his hand on Grant’s and they step into the doorway together.

The room looks empty, but colors tease at the corners of his eyes and he just knows they’re not alone. There’s a throne at the end of the room - looking as empty as everything else - but as they walk a hooded figure steps out from behind it.

Frank squeezes Grant’s fingers. Grant’s squeezing his just as tightly.

Something strange happens to his vision whenever he tries to look directly at the faerie. It’s like being underwater. The faerie reaches up and takes his hood down, revealing pale skin, long white hair and a strange ageless face. Is this a face your eyes can see, mortals? His voice sounds directly in Frank’s ears with a strange sibilant hiss.

“Yes,” Grant says.

I am the steward, the faerie says, gliding forward. You are enjoying our hospitality?

“Frank -” Grant says under his breath. Frank refrains from rolling his eyes. He doesn’t need the warning - he’s fucking petrified.

“It’s been a unique experience,” Frank says carefully.

We have been listening. You are looking for an end to it.

“We have loved ones waiting for us,” Grant answers.

They could wait longer. The hiss has a malicious edge to it now. The room fills with laughter. Frank takes a deep breath.

“They could,” Grant replies. “But we both hope they won’t have to.”

“We want to go home now,” Frank says.

His home, but not yours, mortal, the faerie voice says. We watch.

“No, it’s not my home,” Frank says, nervous, “But he’s family.”

A sound goes through the room like a dozen brittle whispers all at once. The steward waves his hand as if at a swarm of bees, but the whispers don’t fade, and finally he nods. The elder mortal has provided us with much sport over the years. The watchers are satisfied with today’s game.

“You’re sending us back?” Grant asks.

Yes, elder mortal. You and your lover may walk free. The faery gestures. A set of doors Frank hadn’t noticed before blow open with a rush of freezing wind and a swirl of dead leaves.

Frank’s brows draw together. That’s it? Seriously? But before he can get a word out Grant tugs him across the hall out out the doors.

As soon as they clear the threshold, they stumble and their feet hit snow. Their bare feet - the slippers have disintegrated. Grant’s robe has disintegrated. They’re standing in the middle of his back garden. They look at each other for one shocked second.

“It’s still night!” Frank says, startled. “Is it the same night? How can it still be the same night?”

“Fuck if I know,” Grant says, shivering. “I just hope I didn’t lock the kitchen door.” Frank’s eyes widen, and they drag each other slipping and sliding through the snow and the night towards the house. They start laughing about halfway there, and they’re still laughing when they tumble through the door.

“Holy fuck, cold,” Frank breathes, stamping his snowy bare feet. “My god, Grant, you’re not even wearing a shirt.”

“I had a fire in my room, I told you -” They look at each other. “The fire! Quick, upstairs, maybe it hasn’t gone out.” Grant shoos him toward the stairs. He still hasn’t let go of Frank’s hand.

Frank doesn’t know what he’s expecting - a hearth full of dead white ash, maybe. A handily placed calendar to have magically flipped months into the future like in the movies. But the rest of the house looks unchanged, down to the Umbrella Academy mug sitting on the kitchen counter from Grant’s afternoon tea. And when Grant bundles him through his bedroom door, the coals in the hearth are still glowing cherry red.

Grant kneels to stoke the fire and feed on more wood, and when he replaces the fire screen and sits back on his heels, Frank drapes a comforter from the bed over his bare shoulders. Grant’s hand shoots out to grab his wrist. He tugs Frank into his lap and wraps the comforter tightly around them both. His skin is icy at first, and so is Frank’s, but the fire catches quickly and soon Frank’s toes are tingling.

The rest of him is tingling too. He hadn’t expected to spend any part of this night - or any other, really - wrapped in Grant’s arms. He twists around sideways and looks up. Grant is frowning at something across the room. When Frank follows his gaze, he sees - “Your clock. And the fire was still... were we really only gone for -”

“An hour, give or take. The witching hour,” Grant answers, sounding dryly amused.

It’s just after one in the morning. “How is that possible?” Frank asks.

“If I answer magic, will you punch me this time?”

“You seem really convinced I’m always about to punch you,” Frank tells him, twisting farther to look Grant in the face. “I’m trying to decide whether I’m offended.”

Grant’s mouth twists with a smile he tries to hide. “Let me know how it goes.”

Frank leans up to kiss him instead. Grant sighs into his mouth, then lifts a hand to cup the back of Frank’s head and hold him where he is. Frank wraps an arm around Grant’s neck and pulls him closer, and Grant goes willingly, shifting and rolling them both until he’s sprawled on top of the comforter with Frank draped across his chest.

Grant’s hand skates up and down Frank’s back, rucking up his t-shirt and tracing delicately along the line of Frank’s spine. Frank squirms helplessly, ticklish. He can feel Grant’s cock, too, hard against the crease of his thigh. “Thought we were to talk about this,” Grant says lazily, licking along the base of Frank’s throat then starting to suck a mark into the skin.

“I said -” Frank gasps, “That there would - be words.” He squirms again, grinding their hips together so they both gasp.

“And they are?” Grant’s lips travel up to Frank’s ear, back down his jaw to nibble at the point of his chin.

“Fuck me,” Frank groans.

Grant’s hand tightens on his waist. He doesn’t ask if Frank’s sure, but he does say, “Your lung -”

“- Is fine,” Frank finishes. “Come on, Grant,” he teases, “Help me enjoy it.”

Grant responds by rolling him over and shoving at his shirt until he can tug it off over Frank’s head. He just stares for a moment, fingers tracing lightly over Frank’s skin. Then he bends to lick along the curve of Frank’s chestpiece. His mouth ends up on the same spot on Frank’s neck, sucking and biting right below the scorpion, and Frank’s going to have a giant hickey but he does not care in the least. He sets his own teeth into the curve of Grant’s shoulder for a moment, tugging him down until his full weight is pressing Frank into the floor. He feels amazing, and Grant seems to agree because he’s already shifting his hips against Frank. He moves his lips to Frank’s ear and whispers, “Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

Frank’s skin feels almost cool when Grant stands and moves away, despite the fire crackling just feet away, but he squirms out of his sweatpants anyway, nestling back into the comforter and waiting. He doesn’t have to wait long; Grant returns in moments, lube and condom in hand. Frank licks his lips. It’s been entirely too fucking long and this is Grant, who -

Can dissipate logical thought when he takes his pants off. He drops the supplies to the floor next to Frank and unties the drawstring of his pajama pants, and as they pool around his ankles Frank’s mouth goes dry. He’s fucking hung; huge and uncut and gorgeous. “Get down here,” Frank demands.

“Working on it,” Grant murmurs, amused. He kneels between Frank’s legs, pushing them farther apart and stroking one hand along the inside of Frank’s thigh. “You are beautiful,” he says. “Remind me to admire your ink later.”

“Not now?” Frank asks, ending on a gasp as Grant’s wandering fingers stray near the base of his cock.

“You’re awfully demanding.” Grant closes a hand around Frank’s cock at last, drawing another gasp. Frank pushes helplessly into the grip. “Then again, I suppose I owe you.”

“Yes,” Frank agrees, though honestly he’d agree to just about anything right now to keep Grant’s hands on him. He’s slicked his fingers up now, the fingers of his free hand slipping down behind Frank’s balls to search out his opening and stretch him, two fingers thrusting in and out with no hesitation. His other hand is tight and perfect on Frank’s dick, not moving much, just keeping a steady pressure. Frank rocks his hips helplessly, twists his fingers into the comforter on either side of his body and breathes, watching the firelight flicker across Grant’s bare skin and dark downturned eyes.

“So beautiful,” Grant repeats. “How could I resist? Tell me, Frank, tell me how much more you need.” He’s breathing heavily now, lips shiny with spit as his tongue comes out to wet them. Frank wants it on his skin again.

“Now, Grant. Please,” he gasps. Grant takes his hands away, and Frank’s sorry for the instant that he’s gone, putting on the condom, but then he’s touching Frank again, a hand on the back of his thigh pushing his knee toward his chest, pressing into Frank’s body slow and thick and hot. His eyes nearly roll back into his head at the stretch, but he’s groaning out encouragement and grasping at any part of Grant he can reach within seconds, pulling him close and wrapping his legs around Grant’s waist as Grant starts to move.

“So beautiful,” Grant repeats. “So good.” He leans in to kiss Frank again, tongue finding the same rhythm as his hips after a moment, fucking into Frank slow and thorough.

Frank grabs on and pulls him in, tongue flicking at Grant’s ear as Grant’s mouth shifts back to that same spot on Frank’s neck. “Harder,” Frank tells him. “You feel so fucking good. Touch me.”

Grant gets a hand in between them again, wrapping around Frank and letting him fuck Grant’s hand as he thrusts harder, breath coming in pants against Frank’s neck. He comes first, burying his face in Frank’s hair and gasping his name, then bracing his hand by Frank’s side and stroking him fast and tight until Frank follows, arching his back and coming all over Grant’s hand.

He holds Grant where he is with a hand tight around the back of his neck, whining when Grant finally pulls back. “Still demanding,” Grant whispers, returning with a handful of tissues to clean them up a bit. “Into the bed with you.”

Frank obeys, pulling the comforter up onto the mattress with him. Grant’s back within moments, slipping under the covers to tug Frank back up against his chest.

“They called me your lover,” Frank whispers against his collarbone. “It wasn’t true.”

“I’d say it is now,” Grant replies, fingers pressing lightly against the mark he’s left on Frank’s throat. “Provided you don’t have any more words for me.”

“Just yes,” Frank says.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” Grant says, twisting a lock of of Frank’s hair around his fingers. “I wouldn’t mind hearing that one again.”

“It’s looking pretty good,” Frank tells him, tucking his head under Grant’s chin.

*

They have two more days together, the vast majority of which is spent in bed. Frank has absolutely no problem with this. He has a checkup with a local doctor on the afternoon of the second day, which he does have a problem with. Grant has to prod him out of bed and into the shower, which is not normal, but then again nothing about his stay in Scotland has been normal.

The doctor gives him a clean bill of health, even commenting admiringly on his rapid recovery. Frank refrains from mentioning the words “magic” or “faeries” or “boatloads of sex with your famous local writer” and just nods and takes the paperwork to send on to their tour manager.

Grant traps him against the seat back when he gets back into the car and goes about sucking another hickey below the one that’s already there. Frank was right; it’s an impressive hickey, even two days later. His guys are going to flip.

Thinking about the guys just makes him remember he has to leave tomorrow morning. “I’m going to miss you,” he says suddenly to Grant, interrupting a recitation of local restaurants they can get takeaways from for their supper. “And your stupid faery infested house.” He scowls. There hasn’t been a peep from anything not completely terrestrial since they returned. While Grant had returned some emails the previous morning, Frank had spent a half hour sitting cross-legged on Grant’s office floor, scouring his bookshelves for some kind of confirmation that there was a double jeopardy rule for kidnapping by fae, until he’d finally gotten bored and crawled over to blow Grant in his desk chair instead.

He sees the corner of Grant’s mouth twitch, but Grant keeps his eyes on the road. “I’ll miss you too, Frank. But I’ll be in Los Angeles soon. It seems I’ll be spending a bit more time in the US this year.” They’ve already talked about this, casually like it’s not weighing heavy on both their minds.

“The guys will be glad. Gerard will be glad,” Frank says.

“Anyone else?”

“I guess I’ll be glad too,” he grins.

*

They don’t do much sleeping their last night together, either. When Grant drops Frank off at the Glasgow station the next morning for his train to London, the prospect of eight hours of sleep is about the only enticement to get Frank on the train. When he stumbles into the station, hood pulled up over his head, Mehdi is waiting for him, but he refrains from commenting on Frank’s zombielike shuffle.

When Frank lets himself into his room at the hotel, instead of just Ray he finds all his guys waiting for him too. They trade hugs and hellos and Frank lets their questions flow over him as he drops his stuff and shrugs out of his coat.

“You feeling better?”

“You look tired, do you want us to leave?”

“How’s Grant?”

He turns around and actually sees the moment that Gerard’s eyes get to the hickeys on his neck. Where’s his camera when he needs it? “Close your mouth, Gerard, a fly’s gonna get in.”

“It’s, like, winter. There are no flies,” Gerard replies automatically. Frank can also actually see him restraining himself from asking.

Frank bites the inside of his lip to keep from laughing and turns to Ray. “Did you ever hear back from that lady at Guitar World on the phone interview?” Ten minutes, tops, he tells himself. He won’t be able to resist longer than that.

Gerard makes it thirty-four minutes, because that’s when Ray’s phone rings. It’s Christa calling, and Frank and the Ways troop out of the room to give him some privacy. Gerard also makes it the six feet from Frank and Ray’s hotel room door to his own, but pretty much as soon as they’re inside the room he bursts out excitedly, “That’s a hickey!”

“What is, Gerard?” Frank gives him his most unimpressed face. Mikey is actually cackling soundlessly, behind Gerard.

Gerard looks like he’s resisting the urge to throw his hands in the air, and points. “On your neck, Frank. There! Hickey!”

“No it’s not.”

“I think I fucking know what a hickey looks like!” Gerard collapses onto the edge of his bed and actually does sit on his hands.

Frank snorts. Gerard glares. It’s apparently finally sunk in that he’s being fucked with. “It’s two hickeys,” he corrects Gerard, with a relatively straight face.

Forget the camera; Frank wishes he had a video camera. Grant should be seeing this. Gerard’s mouth works silently for a moment, then he finally says emphatically, “Two hickeys. That you got. From Grant.”

“Could have been a stranger on the train,” Mikey puts in from where he’s sprawled on his own bed. “You know Frank.”

“Actually, I was kidnapped by faeries,” Frank corrects him.

“Faeries gave you hickeys,” Gerard repeats mournfully. He sounds like he’s given up, now, so Frank drops onto the bed with him and gives him noogies until he swears and squirms away to pat defensively at his hair.

“No,” Frank tells him with a grin. “That was all Grant. I’d tell you the faeries made him do it, but I think he’s wanted to for a while.”

Gerard hits him in the face with a pillow. “I hate you.”

“I missed you too,” Frank tells him, grabbing the pillow and curling up at the foot of his bed. Mikey tosses him the remote, and Frank starts flipping through the channels. After a while, a foot nudges his back. He turns over.

“He has wanted to for a while,” Gerard tells him quietly. I’m happy for you, his crooked little smile says.

“Me too,” Frank tells him contentedly, and settles back down for another nap.


End file.
